The Tail of Garverde
by waning crescent
Summary: Take one small green mouse, add one dark depressed princess, throw in a heartbroken mouse living with rats, take a pinch of soup, stir in one spool of violet thread, serve with a forsaken girl, finally add in an obsessed king. Serves:those who reveiw!
1. The last mouse

_Hey everyone, this is a rewrite of Kate DiCamillo's book **The Tale of Despereaux**... with a Teen Titans twist, of course. You don't have to have read it in order to understand my story, but if you should anyways because it's a great book. My version has some major changes though in order for it to have fit the TT plot, but just go along with me k? K! Please, please please review! If you do then me and my imaginary mouse will love you forever and ever! _

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans, or The Tale of Despereaux**_

_Main Charactors:_

_Beast Boy: Despereaux, renamed Garverde_

_Raven: Princess Pea, renamed Princes Rae_

_Robin: King Phillip, renamed King Richard_

_Starfire: Miggery Sow (Mig), renamed Korander Star (Kori)_

_Cyborg: The Cook_

_Terra: Roscuro, renamed Terra_

_Slade: Boticelli, Renamed Slade_

"_The world is dark, and light is precious._

_Come closer, dear reader._

_You must trust me._

_I am telling you a story."_

_Kate Dicamillo, The Tale of Despereaux_

**Part One: A Garverde is born**

Chapter One: the last one

This story starts in the most hidden parts between the walls of a castle. With something as insignificant as the birth of a mouse. A small green mouse, the last and least mouse born to his parents, the only one of his litter that survived the perils of birth. But in this story, he is anything but insignificant.

"Where are my newborns?" said the exhausted mother when the trivial ordeal was through. "Show me my little ones."

The father mouse held the small green mouse in the air, exposing him to the world.

"This is the last one, the least one," he said sorrowfully. "The others died."

"Just that one mouse?" The disappointed mother asked.

"Just this one, are you going to name him?"

"All that trouble for nothing," sighed the mother, "just for a sick, sorry mouse. Such a disappointment."

"Are you going to name him?" the father repeated.

"Will I? Of course, should I? No. He will die, like the others, look at him; he's such a sorry disappointment. So sad, such a tragedy..." She trailed off

The mother of the mice held a piece of cloth that served as a handkerchief to her nose and then waved it, not once, but twice, in front of her face. She sniffed. "I will name him, yes. I will name him Garverde, a disappointing name, for such a disappointing mouse, like all of the other despairs in the world. Now, give me my mirror."

Her husband handed her a small shard of glass. The mother mouse looked in it and gasped around. She looked around a spotted one of her older mice children, Mento. "Mento, fetch my makeup bag, my eyes are such a fright!"

While the distressed mother fixed her makeup, the father put Garverde down on a bed made of blanket scraps. The August sun streamed through one of the many palace windows and into the hole that intruded into the mouse fortress. It placed the tip of its golden finger on the small green mouse.

The older mice, kin to the little one gathered around to stare at the new addition to the family.

"He's green!" his sister Rita gasped, "He's not supposed to be green!"

"His ears are enourmous and pointy!" another sister squeaked. "Why are they so pointy?"

"One of his teeth are sticking out!" A brother giggled. "He's funny looking!"

"Look," said Mento, "his eyes are open. Father, his eyes are open. They should not be opened yet.

It was true. Garverde's eyes were defying the guidelines that usually restricted mice his age. His eyes weren't supposed to be opened. But amazingly they were. He was staring at the golden touch of the sun spread across the wall of their humble home, and he was smiling. Smiling at one of the glories of this world.

"There must be something wrong with it." His father said. "Leave him be."

All of his brothers and sisters backed away from the olive green mouse, away, because they were frightened that he was different.

"The last." The mothers voice cut through the air heavy with curiousity. "The last mouse born to me, I will have no more children, they are ruining my good looks, and what disappointments they are too. The last one. The very last."

"The last one," the father echoed, "And he will not possibly live, he can't survive with his eyes open like that. He will die soon.

But, dear reader, he did survive.

And this story is about that young green mouse, Garverde.

_Like it? Hate it? I always say there is only one way to find out! And you know how to do that, constructive criticism is appreciated too, as long as you review! Hey I made a ryme! –giggle--_


	2. Hearing Honey

_**Disclaimer: I don't own Teen titans or The tale of Despereaux**_

_**The world is dark, and light is precious.**_

_**Come closer, dear reader.**_

_**You must trust me. **_

_**I am telling you a story.**_

_**-Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux**_

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Chapter 2: Hearing Honey

Garverde lived.

But his mere existence was cause for much commotion in the community of mice living in the castle.

"He's the smallest mouse there has ever been." His aunt stated. "It's completely ridiculous, there has never been such a small mouse, ever!" She looked at him with her eyes narrowed, as if expecting him to vanish entirely.

Garverde looked back at her and wrapped his green tail around his feet.

"Just look at those ears too!" His uncle criticized. "They look like donkey ears, not mice ears, too big to be mice ears."

"Don't even get me started on his color!" His second cousin put in. "What kind of mouse is green? It's entirely unnatural!"

"And that fang!" someone yelled, "Absurd!"

Garverde smiled and stuck his fang out even more, his aunt gasped.

"They say he was born with his eyes open." whispered his uncle.

Garverde stared hard at him.

"Imposable," said his aunt, "No mouse, however green, pointy fanged, terribly small and absurdly large eared, is ever born with his eyes open. Ever! It simply isn't done."

"His father says he's not well." said another gossiping relative.

Garverde sneezed, just to prove their point.

He didn't defend himself, didn't tell them to back off. Why would he, how could he? He had huge ears, as well as a pointy fang, olive green fur, and he was terribly small too. He had been born with his eyes open, and he was very sickly. He coughed and sneezed all the time, he ran fevers, he fainted. He wasn't interested in mouse-type of things, more in human type things. It was like he wasn't meant to be a mouse at all.

Days went by and they started to lose interest in the alarming mouse, Once while the family was out on a hunting for crumbs, he stopped, cocked his head to the side, and listened, holding still.

"Do you hear that sound?" he asked, "That sweet, sweet sound?"

"Cake crumbs, falling and hitting the floor, bread, shaken off of table clothes, now left for us." Mento said. "That's what I hear.

"No…" Garverde shook his head. "It's something else, something sweet, it sounds like… um… icing on a cake… or perhaps honey."

"You might have elephant ears." Mento commented, "But theirs no brain inside that head of yours. You can't hear honey, you smell it track it down and eat it. When there is honey that you can smell, which there isn't."

"Gar!" Garverde's father barked at him, "Stop making things up, hunt for crumbs, and get your head out of your imaginary honey!"

"Please Gar," his mother said sadly "Hunt for the crumbs. You are such a disappointment already, make you mother happy, eat them, you are already so skinny…. Such a disappointment." She sighed.

"I'm sorry." Gar said. He put his nose to the ground and sniffed ritually at the castle floor.

But Garverde was not smelling.

He was listening, with his obscenely big ears, to the sweet sound, the honey sound, that no other mouse except him could her. Honey pouring and coating him in its delightfulness.

_Another chapter, whew. Sorry if Garverde seems a little OC, but remember his personality is being mixed with Despereaux's. If you like it, hate it, think its okay, or have a comment PLEASE REVIEW! It will only take you 10 seconds, but will bring a day of joy to this treehuggin author. The other titans will appear soon –wink wink-- _


	3. Once upon a time

**Disclaimer: I don't own teen titans, the tale of Despereaux, blah blah blah… **

**Chapter 3: Once upon a time…**

Mento and Rita tried to educate teach their brother how to be a mouse. His brother took him on a tour of the castle to teach him the art of scurrying.

"You have to move from side to side," Mento instructed, scrabbling across the smooth stone floor. "Look over your shoulder all the time, right, left, right left. Don't stop for anything!"

Garverde tried to follow his brother's paranoid rants, but he tripped and fell over his feet. He stared at the light pouring into the stained-glass window that indented the wall. He stood up and looked up, up, up, into the glorious light.

"Dude!" He stated, just looking into the light. "What is that? What are all those colors, are we in heaven?

"What did mother tell you about saying 'Dude'?" Mento sighed. "Don't just stand there in the middle of the floor talking about heaven! Your not a man, you're a mouse, you've got to scurry!" He ran away like a good mouse into a hole in the molding.

Garverde looked around for him

"What dude?" he said, still transfixed by the mysterious light.

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The next day Garverde's sister Rita took him into the library, where light came streaming in through tall, high windows and landed on the floor in bright yellow patches.

"Follow me!" Rita called, "follow small brother and I will instruct you how to nibble paper.

Rita ran up a chair and from there hopped onto a large wooden table where there was a huge, open book.

"This way," she called as she crawled over the pages of the book.

And Garverde followed.

"Now then," she instructed. "This glue, here, is tasty, and the paper edges are crunchy and yummy, like so." She nibbled the edge of a page and then looked over at Garverde.

"Now you try," she ordered. "First bites of some glue, and then follow it with a crunch of the paper. Oh, and these. The squiggles. They are scrumptious."

Garverde looked down at the book and something amazing happened. The marks on the page, squiggles, made themselves into shapes, and then words and the words spelled out a wonderful phrase: 'Once upon a time.'

Garverde repeated the phrase. "Once upon a time."

"What?" questioned Rita.

"Oh nothing." Garverde said nervously.

Rita looked at him suspiciously. "You aren't going to play one of your stupid pranks on me again are you?"

Garverde shook his head, although that would be rather fun.

"Eat." She ordered.

Garverde looked at her in horror. "I can't!"

"Well why not?"

"Um…It would ruin the story."

"The story? What story? Is this a stupid joke?" The mostly level tempered Rita threw her hands up in exasperation. "Something's not right with you, just like father said when you were born, quit joking around and act like a mouse for once in your life!" She turned and scurried from the library to tell the family about this new disappointment that had arisen.

Garverde waited she was gone, and then reached out and touched the lovely curling words with one paw. Once upon a time.

"Once upon a time," he said aloud, and the words tasted good coming from his tiny green mouth, like the honey sound he had heard the other day. He read a story about a beautiful princess who was rescued by a brave knight who serves and honors her.

Garverde did not know it, but he would need, very soon, to be brave himself.

For below the castle there was a dungeon, and in that dungeon there were rats. Big rats. Bad rats.

Garverde was destined to meet those big bad rats, for there is an interesting fate that awaits almost everyone, man and yes, even mouse, that does not conform to the society they live in.

_Hey dudes… hehehe. I tried to make Gar a little less OC in this chapter, but yes I know he still needs work. I'll make him more like himself next chapter, which will also introduce 2 of our titans, cough birds cough. Please review! It will only take you like 2 seconds and it will let me know if I'm doing a good job and if I should continue! Review! Review! Review! It would make one treehugga's day great!_


	4. A Dark Bird

**Disclaimer: I don't own TT, or the tale of Despereaux**

**Chapter four: A Dark Bird**

Soon Garverde's brothers and sisters abandoned the task of trying to teach the little mouse how to act like a mouse.

So Garverde was free.

H spent his days playing pranks on his family, staring dreamily at the light in the stained-glass windows. He went to the library and read over and over again the story of the princess and the knight. He told jokes to anyone who would hear them. He finally discovered the source of the honey sound.

It was music.

The sound was the princess, Princess Rae, playing her piano before she retired for the night, while her brother, King Richard listened. For you see, even the kings and princesses of any world need light. Everybody has a different kind of light. There light was music.

Hidden in a hole in the wall of the parlor, the mouse listened with all of his heart. The sound of the keys being pressed down by dainty fingers made Garverde's soul grow large and light inside of him.

"Heaven." He said dreamily. "Better then jokes or tofu. It smells like honey."

He stuck one pointed green ear out of the hole in the wall so that he could hear the music better, and then he stuck his right ear out so that he could hear better still. And it wasn't too long before one of his paws followed his head, and then another paw, and without any planning, he was out in the open, just so he could get closer to the music. And even though Garverde did not indulge in the normal behaviors of mice, he did follow the most basic of all mice rules ever been mad: Do not ever, under any circumstances, reveal yourself to humans.

But the music was drawing him to it, calling his name ever so sweetly. He crept towards the piano, and sat right near the stool. And of course the princess spotted him.

The princess was like no other seen in books, her hair wasn't a golden color, it was violet, and her eyes weren't blue, they were a brilliant amethyst that matched her eyes perfectly. She was beautiful in her own way, like a dark bird. A raven.

She stopped playing the piano, and the king looked up from his defense plans.

"Look Richard, a mouse."

The king glanced towards it. "That is a bug, not a mouse."

"No, it's a mouse." She protested.

The king shook his head. "It's too small to be a mouse, and it's green. What kind of a mouse is green." The king wasn't sitting as close to the Garverde as Rea was, so of course he couldn't see the tiny creature that well. He went back to his plans.

During this conversation Garverde realized that he had made a very grave error. He trembled, thinking of what the other mice would say if they found out about this atrocity, about what the beautiful princess was going to do to him.

"You must be frightened." She said in the monotone she was so used to speaking in. She turned away from him, and started playing again, glancing towards him too see if he was still frightened. She closed her eyes and started playing a sad, sweet song. A song that swelled his heart up and made him want to hear more. He forgot all of his fear; he only wanted to hear the beautiful song. He crept closer and closer, up the leg of the piano, until he was sitting on top of it, looking down on the keys and listening to the princess.

Rae noticed the mouse, and she gave a ghost of a smile.

"You know, you're kind of cute for a mouse." She said over the soft music.

"Sweet! The hot princess thinks I'm cute!" Gar thought, and at that moment when she gave her oh so small smile, he fell in love. Isn't it ridiculous for a small green, pointy eared, fanged toothed, jokester mouse to fall in love with a beautiful but dark human princess?

This answer, as you should know is yes, of course it is, but dear reader, love is ridiculous.

But love is also wonderful, and powerful, and the little mouse's love for Rea would prove, in time to be wonderful, powerful, and yes even ridiculous.

Rae finished the song, and looked down at the mouse, and even though a hard shell was forever formed around her heart, the tiny fanged smile of that rodent broke a ever so tiny hole through it. And she was touched.

"You're not half bad." She whispered, and touched the tiny mouse on the top of its head. And Gar looked up at her, overwhelmed.

But coincidences happen, and at that moment it was a coincident that Gar's older brother Mento just happened to scurry past the parlor at that very moment.

And what Mento saw was a pale finger, the finger of the princess of the castle, touching the top of his green brothers head.

Mento gasped. He blinked. He rubbed his eyes with his paws. But there was no denying it. Gar had broken the rules. Mento scurried off to tell his father the terrible, unbelievable, unforgivable news of what he had just seen.

_Like it? Don't like it? You can tell me what you think with just a simple click of a button, and make my day! The next chapter will be kind of short, like this one, but after that I am going to make them longer. Thanks for reading, and REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! _


	5. I honor you

**Disclaimer: I don't own TT or the tale of despereaux **

**Chapter Five: I honor you**

"He simply cannot be my son," Gar's father said, stunned. He clutched his whiskers with his front paws and shook his head from side to side in despair.

"Of course hi is your son," said his wife. "what do you mean he is not your son? This is a ridiculous statement. Why must you always make the ridiculous statements?"

"You, this is your fault. Your mother was always a little off. Your family's blood has made him crazy."

"Mine? My blood? Why must it always be I who takes the blame? If your son is such the disappointment, it is as much your fault as min." she said and crossed her arms, turning her back on him.

"Well whoever's fault it is something must be done!" yelled the father. He pulled on a whisker so hard that it came loose. He waves the whisker over his head and then pointed it at his wife. "He will be the end of this mouse community. Sitting near a human princess, letting her touch him! Unbelievable, Unthinkable!"

"Always so dramatic," Gars mother said holding her paw out and studying her painted nails. "He is such a small mouse, how much harm could he do?"

"If there is one thing I have learned in this castle, it is that mice must act like mice or they are destined to bring trouble. I will call a meeting of the Mouse Council. Together we shall decide what will be done about your son Garverde."

Gar's mother ignored the statement about 'your son' "You and that council of the mouse. It is a waste of time."

"Don't you see? He must be punished. He has to be brought up before the tribunal." He pushed past her and dug furiously through a pile of paper scraps, until he uncovered a thimble with a piece of leather stretched across its open end.

"Not that accursed drum." His wife said, putting her paws over her ears.

"Yes, the drum is needed." He started to pound it; one long beat with his tail then two short ones with his paws. The rhythm of the drum was a signal for the members of the mouse council. It would let them know an important decision would have to be made.

What was our own favorite member of the mouse community doing while the sound of the Mouse Council drum echoed through the walls of the castle? For Mento hadn't seen the worst of it. Garverde sat with the princess while she played song after song, and at one point, Rae picked Gar up gently and put him on her shoulder, where he sat under her violet curtain of hair and looked down upon the keys, and up into her face in turn.

"I've never seen a mouse with pointed ears." She said at one point. "But then again I've never seen a green mouse before either." She didn't say it hurtfully, as Gar's relatives did, but as a compliment.

"Richard," Rae said after she finished a song by Chopin, "I am going to keep this mouse, and we will be great friends.

The king looked at Garverde nestling on his sisters shoulder. His eyes narrowed. "A mouse. That's a rodent."

"What?" Rae said shocked.

"Put it down so I can squash it!" He commanded.

"No, I won't, and you will not do such a thing either." She stood up.

"But It's a mouse!"

"I know that, I told you it was a mouse in the first place."

"I wasn't thinking."

"Of what?"

"Of Slade."

"Slade…" Rae said, looking into the distance.

"Mice are rodents, they are related to rats, you know how this castle feels about rats, we don't associate with them.

Rae shook her head. "He's not a rat, He's a mouse, there's a difference.

Richard shook his head, "He's related to Slade, Slade must die!" He yelled, lunging at Rae and knocking the small mouse off her shoulder, Gar fell to the piano, not seriously hurt, just surprised.

"Dude! What is your problem!" he said, but not loud enough to be noticed.

The king started towards the mouse but Rae held him back.

"Richard, stop acting like an obsessed lunatic!" She yelled.

Gar took the opportunity to run towards the hole in the wall. He turned one last time to see Rae kick the king, knocking him to the floor, and her defense for him broke his heart and made it swell from happiness at the same time. He broke the last of the great, ancient rules of mice. He spoke. To a human.

"Thank you!" He shouted.

"Don't speak to her you Slade lover!" The king yelled, and he was trying to get up, but being held down by the princess.

"My name is Garverde!" He yelled to the princess.

"Garverde?" She asked wrinkling her nose. "What a funny name."

"You can call me Gar!" He said with a smile.

The king tore away from Rae and started to crawl towards Gar.

"I honor you!" Gar shouted.

"I honor you" was what the knight said to the fair princess in the story that Garverde had read in the library. Gar had muttered this phrase to himself many a time, but he had never said it aloud, now that he said it to someone it took on a new taste in his mouth, one sweeter then before.

"Rawr!" Said the paranoid king.

"Dude, get a life!" Said Gar, disappearing into the hole. He looked back once he was safe, and saw the princess looking at him, right, directly into his soul.

"Garverde." She said, trying the name out again. He saw his name on her lips.

"I honor you." Gar whispered. "I honor you." He put a clawed green paw to his heart and bowed to the ground mocking the price in the story. He gave her a fleeting fanged smile and scurried away. He was a mouse deeply in love.

_Like it? Love it? Hate it? You can tell me what you think with one click of a mouse and 10 seconds of your time! I hope you like the character development I gave to robin; I made him especially crazy for my favorite and only reviewer to this story; _Strix Moonwing_, thanks for all the support!_


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